4 BIOLOGY 



it is thrown out of adjustment and consequently does not 

 show activity. So in regard to living things; the inability to 

 show further activity may undoubtedly be attributed to the 

 fact that the machinery is out of order. If, for example, the 

 beating of the heart ceases for any length of time, life activity 

 must cease, because life activity is dependent on the circulation 

 of the blood. Thus, in many cases we know positively that 

 death comes from the breaking down of the machine. Whether 

 death means anything more than the breaking down of the 

 machine; whether anything is lost which can be called the 

 life force, is one of the questions over which philosophy and 

 biology have puzzled for long years, and upon which they 

 have not reached any definite conclusion. 



3. Growth. All organisms disintegrate by oxidation and 

 waste. When a piece of wood reaches the required temperature 

 to unite with the oxygen of the air, it burns. Waste products 

 appear as gases and ashes, and the wood disappears. In a 

 similar way, by union with oxygen the living body is being 

 constantly converted into waste products which are given off 

 from the body as excretions. As a result the organism is 

 constantly disintegrating. This would inevitably result in the 

 disappearance of the organism if it were not for the opposite 

 power of reintegration, or growth. 



All living things have the power of growing, and no object 

 that is not alive has this power. It is true that, under some 

 circumstances, crystals may increase in size, and this is some- 

 times referred to as a growth of the crystals; but it is a totally 

 different kind of growth from that which we find in living 

 things. In the case of the crystal, the new material is simply 

 laid upon the outside of the old, layer after layer, and the 

 apparent growth is really an increase in size, by the process of 

 accretion. In the growth of the living organism, material is 

 taken inside of the body, and there it is transformed into 

 compounds like those of the living organism which has ab- 

 sorbed it. Thus the living organism increases from within, 



